It is no longer news that analysts rate Nigerians as intelligent people with exceptional individual talents but handicapped with an inability to work as a team. I believe Nigerians can work as a team under a suitable political environment where there is accountability.

Intelligent people, as Nigerians have been acclaimed to be, tend to be motivated by their performance. If you want to motivate them, all that is required is a clear process of accountability that aid to measure, recognise and reward their performance. 

However, performance means different things to different people. Generally, performance is the output achieved with a set of inputs. For example, given the level of financial and human resources available to Nigeria, the level of its economic and political development should be commensurate with these resources.

The pervasiveness of accountability becomes much clearer when you seek an answer to how well Nigeria or any organisation is performing. Accountability is not about blaming those who failed to achieve their goals. One should aspire to do away with a blame culture. A blame culture is regressive and demoralising. One needs a culture that motivates and inspires everyone to put in his or her best.

What then is accountability in terms of governance? Put simply, accountability is the obligation of those that we have entrusted with responsibilities to explain to us how well they have discharged their stewardship.

The difficulty with measuring performance lies with the failure to agree an outcome given a set of inputs. Measuring performance can also be made difficult by lack of clear understanding of what qualifies as an outcome, in terms of quantity and quality.

If you are to improve performance in governance, you need to start with a new focus on accountability. A greater emphasis needs to be placed on defining responsibilities so that all stakeholders are clear about:

• What is to be done
• Who should do it
• How it should be done
• When it should be done.

Listed below is a brief explanation of the above.

What is to be done.

These require identification of priorities, putting forward proposals to deal with them and being clear about the probable impact of the proposal on other activities. It may also include setting performance targets for the various departments.

Government and business organisations set annual targets that are/ought to be derived from their long-term strategic plan and put a suitable performance management process in place. The process involves setting performance measures, using appraisal to assess performance, agree action and monitor progress

The problem with Nigeria, as with many third world countries, is its failure to implement effective planning and budgetary control in the process of discharging responsibilities.

Some of the basic responsibilities of government are the provision of healthcare, education, roads, housing, security of life and property. Government may not necessarily provide these directly to its citizens but should have policies in place that aid their provision.

Who should do it.

The process of identifying what is to be done will unveil department or the tier of government to do it.

The approach adopted in businesses organizations to define agreed departmental roles, responsibilities and avoid role ambiguity can equally be used in shaping government departments.

In Nigeria it is easy to see the effect of role ambiguity. For example, the role ambiguity between the three tiers of government (local, state and federal) is a problem that is common to developing countries. But it appears to be more pronounced in Nigeria. This is due to years of military rule that centralised almost all aspect of government functions and undermined a true federal system of government.

Therefore, in order to achieve effective accountability, the people need to be in no doubt as to what tier of government is responsible for what activities. Also the resources available to each tier of government should be freely available to the public.

How it should be done.

The reality is that government does not have the required financial resources to meet all the needs of its citizens. Unfortunately, this has not stopped political parties from making unachievable promises to the electorate during election campaigns.

Governments and businesses based their plans on forecast earnings and assumed level of operating costs. What is not obvious to the general public is the risk involve in the forecast earnings and the assumed costs.

However, a proper evaluation of the forecast (e.g. using a scenario or “what if” analysis) will aid planning. It is important to look for any sign of optimism bias by careful scrutiny of the proposals.

When it should be done.

When project proposals are put forward, it is important to ask and get assurances about the time span for the completion of the project. Also it is advisable to consider significant risks that may affect the projected completion time.

This process is very important for capital projects. No new capital projects should be embarked upon unless the resources to complete them at the scheduled time have been clearly identified.

The lack of accountability by various government ministries can be linked to the abandoned government projects in Nigeria. What is more shocking is the number of new projects initiated while the states are littered with abandoned projects.

The way forward is to identify who is best placed to measure the performance of those entrusted with public funds and ensure accountability. I have always believed that auditors (internal and external) should play a greater role in the monitoring all government activities.

In addition to how well one complies with the relevant rules and regulations, performance is also about how well one use and safe guard resources.

So therefore auditors should report on compliance with due process when required and provide detail information as to how public funds is used.

The state and federal governments of Nigeria have directly employed internal audit staff. The widespread fraud and corruption in government is a testimony to the failure of directly employed internal audit staff. In my view, it is a waste of resources for any organisation to have directly employed internal audit staff. All audit functions should be contracted out. In order words, government should have two separate audit firms looking through its financial records every year. One accounting firm will act as the internal auditor and the other as the external auditor.

Finally, the content of the audit reports should form one of the bases for measuring performance against target and stewardship of the senior management. I would advocate for statutory provisions to regulate the appointment, remuneration, duties, responsibilities and dismissal of all auditors in the public sector. Statutory backing will enhance and safeguard auditors’ impartiality.

Nosa Olotu, UK

Robot  Villager

# 1 The pervasiveness of accountability becomes much clearer when you seek an answer to how wel...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 11.02.2008 18:40

Mutti  Villager

# 2 Mr/Ms Nosa Olotu, Reading through your article, I find it is suitable material for a newsletter that I am helping put together and would like to request your permission to reproduce it? We will of course give you the credit and acknowledge NVS. Thank you Posted by Mutti| 12.02.2008 02:58

Enforcer  Villager

# 3 =Mutti;4294988159>Mr/Ms Nosa Olotu, Reading through your article, I find it is suitable material for a newsletter that I am helping put together and would like to request your permission to reproduce it? We will of course give you the credit and acknowledge NVS. Thank you Mutti I am curious. What Newsletter is that? No, no objection if you do it in accordance with the NVS rules. We need more success stories about Nigerians and Nigeria. Good luck! Posted by Enforcer| 12.02.2008 05:06

Sapele Man  Villager

# 4 =Mutti;4294988159>Mr/Ms Nosa Olotu, Reading through your article, I find it is suitable material for a newsletter that I am helping put together and would like to request your permission to reproduce it? We will of course give you the credit and acknowledge NVS. Thank you Mutti ..........and donate some of the profit to NVS! Nosa This article is spot on. Have you considered converting it into a book? Posted by Sapele Man| 13.02.2008 02:09

Mutti  Villager

# 5 Enforcer Thank you from the bottom of my pen holder. You have saved me nights racking my empty brain for article. The news letter is in fulfilment of the publicity awareness and knowledgementment component of a service delivery initiative. It is meant to be published quarterly and the theme this issue is performance management and service delivery. Once again thank you. Oga sapele water - I am happy to donate the profit o. Even to you personally but you gat to be here to get it. @admin - would you please clarify if there are any copyright issues. Enforcer raised a valid point. I had kinda taken things for granted Posted by Mutti| 13.02.2008 15:55